Will Peyton decide before start of free agency today? Lard 3-13-12

Douglas LeeMar 13, 2012 7:45 AM

Good Morning, Broncos fans! The Dolphins finally got their meeting with Peyton Manning, even if it likely wasn't quite what they had likely envisioned. Instead of the full-court press both Denver and Arizona were able to employ, Miami sent new head coach Joe Philbin, OC Mike Sherman, and other members of the coaching staff, who met with Manning in Indianapolis for between five and six hours last night.

Manning is next expected to meet with Titans coach Mike Munchak either today or tomorrow at an undisclosed location. The Titans were reportedly planning on making a big push to sign Mario Williams but have now instead shifted their attention to Manning.

Klis says there's an outside chance Manning announces his decision before today's 4pm ET free-agency kickoff, and he reports that John Fox assured Peyton he would be allowed to run his hurry-up offense in Denver. Of course, if this weren't the case, Peyton wouldn't have bothered showing up in the first place.

All considered, Denver still appears to be in the lead, with Arizona next, and the Titans and Dolphins making their late pushes. The guess here is Peyton has no desire to experience the circus that would come with playing either the Colts (with Tennessee) or Patriots (with Miami) twice a year for the rest of his career. He seems like a guy wary of the most intense spotlights, and motivated not by revenge, but by the desire to win another championship. Even if Tennessee is a better team than Denver at this point, their path to a division title is impeded by Houston, and of course it may be many years before the Dolphins again beat the Pats for the AFC East title.

With the Niners apparently about to re-up with Alex Smith, they will offer hefty competition for Arizona even if Peyton should go there. Denver has loads of cap room, and the Cardinals do not. They already started making room by cutting their starting left tackle, but to create enough room to sign Manning to the deal he deserves and also add more players (ie Peyton's ex-Colts teammates), some cap-related gymnastics may be in order.

As we said last week, Denver just makes a ton of sense for Peyton, and nothing changed that. Here's hoping he sees it the same way.

Broncos

D.J. Williams and Ryan McBean filed suit against the NFL in Denver District Court over their drug suspensions; Denver tendered all of its restricted free agents, including McBean.

Legwold reiterates Denver's distinct advantage over Arizona relative to available salary cap space, and he reminds us that Manning will have to pass a team physical before signing a contract.

Matt Bowen thinks the Broncos and Titans are doing the right thing in going after Peyton; he figures Manning to have another three years left in him, and he thinks the QB would make Denver an immediate contender.

Clark Judge agrees that Tim Tebow figures to be on the way out of town, and John Elway will be in damage-control mode if he doesn't land Peyton.

Bill Barnwell says that since the Bronco had a terrible point differential last season, they could easily be expected to have a poorer record in 2012 - unless they sign Peyton Manning.

Jim Nantz thinks Denver makes sense for Manning, and he figures Tim Tebow would be headed to Jacksonville if the Broncos are able to pull off the signing.

Brady Quinn and Russ Hochstein are among 66 current and former NFL players spending a week attending business seminars at Harvard and Northwestern.

Trimmings

The league took away large chunks of cap space from Dallas ($10M) and Washington ($36M) for having frontloaded several contracts for last year's uncapped season; apparently the NFLPA had to sign off on the punishment. Without it, the 2012 cap was going to be significantly lower than it had been last season. Mike Freeman sees the punishment as more proof that Roger Goodell comes down hard on all miscreants - not just players.

Saints owner Tom Benson and coach Sean Payton met with the Commish yesterday to discuss their part in the bounty scandal.

San Francisco signed Randy Moss to a one-year deal after coach Jim Harbaugh threw passes to him in a workout; Alex Smith says he is happy with the three-year deal the Niners offered, and an agreement is just a matter of ironing out details; Doug Farrar, Matt Bowen, and Jason Cole analyze the Moss signing.

WR Marques Colston and the Saints are trying to finalize a long-term deal; the Steelers placed a first-round tender on WR Mike Wallace, as expected.

Farrar also has Marcus McNeil being a top FA if released. McNeil has announced that he's retiring due to injury issues, making the signing of Jared Gaither a necessity for the Bolts.

Posted by Doc Bear on 2012-03-13 15:31:31

So, a simple matter of signing 6-8 FAs, O+B? lol - I had much the same response. There are some very good options coming up in the draft, but there are an awful lot of FAs who got 1 year contracts and teams like Houston who are up against the cap. Denver's been working on getting that cash and cap space for 3 seasons now (at the least). You remember that money they were saving for a rainy day? It's raining....but they're likely to try to deal with Manning first.

Posted by Doc Bear on 2012-03-13 15:08:53

Am I the only person on planet earth that does not want Manning here?

C'mon - we're the Broncos - the injury bug kills us annually.

Manning, if signed, will be hurt in pre-season and we're back to square one.

I find the Tebow experiment much more interesting and entertaining.

Ugh.

In my dreams, we sign Manning and KEEP Timmy. Tim would just accept it as God's plan, and not pull any primadonna trade demands. Then when Manning tweaks his neck, they flip the switch and go into read/option mode, instead of inserting some rook or stiff we picked up from free agency.

Let somebody else pay top dollar for damaged goods. This sucks.

Posted by Johnny D. on 2012-03-13 13:04:23

One problem is the league office approved all of the contracts signed in the uncapped year. And they did it the day before free agency started. Something doesn't smell right about this.

Posted by Myron Giddings Jr on 2012-03-13 11:11:44

Tannehill is your yearly, far over-rated QB prospect. This QB draft is completely top heavy with Luck & RG3. Problem is, without Barkley or Jones, there's a massive cliff down to the next ones. Tannehill is just the best of the rest. Doesn't make him a good prospect, but someone will take him too early, likely.

Posted by OutInOregon on 2012-03-13 10:33:21

Very much agreed with the comment above regarding going after Eric Winston - he's a quality player and person. I still don't understand at all the love affair with Ryan Tannehill - has anyone actualy watched him play?

Posted by SteveS on 2012-03-13 09:56:50

You really don't agree with it? Keep it mind, each team could've paid an exorbitant amount to a player for a single year contract. I'm sure Elvis would've taken $40 of his $63m due in year 1, but that ruins what makes the NFL so much better than baseball/basketball.

Think about it. The Cowboys signed Miles Austin to a 7-year $57m contract front-loaded so that he'd receive $17m in the uncapped year and $2m last year. They weren't messing just with the uncapped year but also with capped years by manipulating their cap hit when it mattered. If a FMV amount was allocate to the remainder of the contract, he probably would've made something like $8-9m in the uncapped year. So the NFL makes them reallocate the excessive portion to years in which they take almost no hit from his contract.

It was probably nice of the NFL to let the 'boys split the hit over the next two years.

And maybe there wasn't formal notice or straight rejection by the NFL, but it's a hard argument for the NFL in the NFLPA suit to say they weren't colluding if they rejected the deals as creating a future competitive advantage.

Don't expect many signings today from Denver, we seem to have a tendency to wait out free agency a bit. Go get 'em, EFX.

Posted by Orange_and_Blue on 2012-03-13 08:31:59

I'm not sure I agree with punishing the Redskins and Cowboys like that. It was an uncapped year. How is it fair to be accountable in a newly capped year for the previous, uncapped one? I am surprised the NFLPA signed off.